LIFE OF WILSON. 
xxxm 
Thousands here would rejoice to be in his situation. How happy 
may you live thus united together in a free and plentiful country, 
after so many years of painful separation, where the bare necessa- 
ries of life were all that incessant drudgery could procure, and even 
that but barely. Should even sickness visit you, which God forbid, 
each of you is surrounded by almost all the friends you have in the 
world, to nurse you, and pity and console you ; and surely it is not 
the least sad comfort of a death bed, to be attended by afiectionate 
relatives. Write me positively by post, two or three times. My 
best love to my sister, to Isabella, Alexander, John, the two Maries, 
James, Jeany, little Annie. God Almighty bless you all. 
“ Your ever aflfectionate friend, 
“ALEX. WILSON.” 
To ALEXANDER DUNCAN. 
October 31, 1802. 
“ Dear Alexander, 
“ I have laughed on every perusal of your let- 
ter. I have now deciphered the whole, except the blots, but 1 fancy 
they are only by the way of half mourning for your doleful captivi- 
ty in the back woods, where there is nothing but wheat and butter, 
eggs and gammon, for hagging down trees. Deplorable ! what 
must be done ? It is a good place, you say, for a man who has a 
parcel of weans / * * * 
“ But forgive this joking. I thank you, most heartily, for this 
your^/'5^ letter to me; and I hope you will follow it up with many 
more. I shall always reply to them with real pleasure. I am glad 
that your chief objection to the country is want of money. No 
place is without its inconveniences. Want of the necessaries of 
life would be a much greater grievance. If you can, in your pre- 
sent situation, procure sufficient of these, though attended with 
I 
VOL, IX. 
